FEMINIST ETHICS

In work published from the 1980s, feminist philosophers argued that the
prevalent topics, interests, and modes of argument in moral philosophy reflect
a distinctively male point of view, and they sought to change the practice of
the discipline to make it less male-biased in these respects. Their challenge
raised questions in metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. The
feminist approach received considerable impetus from the publication of In a
Different Voice (1982), by the American psychologist Carol Gilligan. Gilligan’s
work was written in response to research by Lawrence Kohlberg, who claimed
to have discovered a universal set of stages of moral development through
which normal human beings pass as they mature into adulthood.
 Kohlberg claimed that children and young adults gradually progress
toward more abstract and more impartial forms of ethical reasoning,
culminating in the recognition of individual rights. As Gilligan pointed
out, however, Kohlberg’s study did not include females. When Gilligan
studied moral development in girls and young women, she found less
emphasis on impartiality and rights and more on love and compassion
for the individuals with whom her subjects had relationships. Although
Gilligan’s findings and methodology were criticized, her suggestion that
the moral outlook of women is different from that of men led to
proposals for a distinctly feminist ethics—an “ethics of care.”
 As developed in works such as Caring (1984), by the American
feminist philosopher Nel Noddings, this approach held that
normative ethics should be based on the idea of caring for those
with whom one has a relationship, whether that of parent, child,
sibling, lover, spouse, or friend. Caring should
take precedence over individual rights and moral rules, and
obligations to strangers may be limited or nonexistent. The
approach emphasized the particular situation, not abstract moral
principles.
 Not all feminist moral philosophers accepted this approach. Some
regarded the very idea that the moral perspective of women is more
emotional and less abstract than that of men as tantamount to accepting
patriarchal stereotypes of women’s thinking. Others pointed out that, even
if there are “feminine” values that women are more likely to hold than men,
these values would not necessarily be “feminist” in the sense of advancing
the interests of women. Despite these difficulties, feminist approaches led
to new ways of thinking in several areas of applied ethics, especially those
concerned with professional fields like education and nursing, as well as in
areas that male philosophers in applied ethics had tended to neglect, such
as the family.
APPLIED ETHICS
 The most striking development in the study of ethics since the mid-1960s
was the growth of interest among philosophers in practical, or applied,
ethics—i.e., the application of normative ethical theories to practical
problems. This is not, admittedly, a totally new departure.
From Plato onward, moral philosophers have concerned themselves with
practical questions, including suicide, the exposure of infants, the treatment
of women, and the proper behaviour of public officials. Christian
philosophers, notably Augustine and Aquinas, examined with great care
such matters as when a war is just, whether it is ever right to tell a lie, and
whether a Christian woman does wrong by committing suicide to save
herself from rape.
 Hobbes had an eminently practical purpose in writing
his Leviathan, and Hume wrote about the ethics of suicide. The
British utilitarians were very much concerned with practical
problems; indeed, they considered social reform to be the aim of
their philosophy. Thus, Bentham wrote on electoral and prison
reform and animal rights, and Mill discussed the power of the
state to interfere with the liberty of its citizens, the status of
women, capital punishment, and the right of one state to invade
another to prevent it from committing atrocities against its own
people.
 Nevertheless, during the first six decades of the 20th century, moral
philosophers largely neglected applied ethics—something that now
seems all but incredible, considering the traumatic events through
which most of them lived. The most notable exception, Bertrand
Russell (1872–1970), seems to have regarded his writings on ethical
topics as largely separate from his philosophical work and did not
attempt to develop his ethical views in any systematic or rigorous
fashion.
 The prevailing view of this period was that moral
philosophy is quite separate from “moralizing,” a task best
left to preachers. What was not generally considered was
whether moral philosophers could, without merely
preaching, make an effective contribution to discussions of
practical issues involving difficult ethical questions.
 The value of such work began to be widely recognized only during the
1960s, when first the U.S. civil rights movement and subsequently
the Vietnam War and the growth of student political activism started to
draw philosophers into discussions of the ethical issues of
equality, justice, war, and civil disobedience.
Applied ethics soon became part of the philosophy curriculum of most
universities in many different countries. Here it is not possible to do
more than briefly mention some of the major areas of applied ethics
and point to the issues that they raise.
THANKS